TROPICALIA CHAPTER FOUR: THE LADY: GAL COSTA

Okay I will be a little honest here. I have not listened to this album in quite a while and also out of the all the Tropicalia albums I did not play it over and over like many of the others.  Gal Costa's album is a breath of fresh air in the most difficult time in Brazilian history of the late 1960's.  Her voice is just beautiful and fits the music well and also in some occasions sings like any of our favorite woman artists of the decade.  Gal's album out of all the albums that came out during the movement is the most Psychedelic and is a far departure from her previous work.  It's almost like an album that is stuck in a time capsule.

Gal's album is just like the rest, but in it's own terms and moreover it's a female perspective of the political unrest in Brazil of the time.  It's beautiful in all it's forty minute glory.  The longest of the era's albums.  She sings with heart and conviction.  She is also in present times less active then Caetano and Gilberto.  I think their should be a reunion. We can only hope right?

At first listen you just think it's just another Brazilian album with rich and lush musical tones and with a homage to Bossa Nova sound and sighting her influences from the Getz and Gilberto Bossa Nova classic "Girl From Ipanema" but there is so much more.  There is more because it's what she did on her debut.  It's music that the government  of Brazil has no problem what she is playing, but there is so much more.  Then all of the sudden it changes on you and it's like any late 1960's Psychedelic album from the US. It's rich and more Psychedelic then the other artists of it's time.

When I surveyed the music of Tropicalia I was amazed on how little information on Gal Costa there was.  Another female artist was also had very little information was Rita Lee one of the founding members of Os Mutantes. The book Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture gave some great info, but I felt like it left out the female artists of the time.  Rita was not only a founding member, but played with the Os Mutantes for their popularity of a band from 1968-1972.  Like Gal, Rita is not much in the music circle anymore. Gal tends to be more Avant-Garde and Rita was pure Rock and Roll.

When you listen to Gal's album it is amazing that the music is so accessible.  I love it, it mixes the elements of Psychedelic, Brazilian music and Avant-Garde.  It's great, exciting and fresh.  I wish I had other albums to compare to and see what she progressed into and how her music kept the same sound or went back to something traditional.  Her music is still great no matter what path she chose.  I asked a friend who was also a fan of the Tropicalia movement about what he thought about Gal's album.  His reply was pretty simple, "Its great and fun and the song "Baby" really give Gal Costa the shining star."  He's right, that song is amazing and is a song that gives Tropicalia it's identity and not only that the song is a standard in Brazilian music.  To this day when I hear it, the music gives me goosebumps.  Hard to find, but worth tracking down is Gal Costa's second album called Gal Costa. Beautiful music no matter how you look at it.  Enjoy!